I Don't Care, I'm Still Free
by GypsyFirefly
Summary: Lana Hendricks has been changed for life, forever moulded by her short time with the Doctor and his companions. She finds that she can't really go back to normal after her time with them and fights to find meaning and acceptance amid danger.
1. Normal

It was frigid in the old fashioned church, but that did not weaken its ability to provide comfort to its inhabitants. Snow was falling outside, wind shrieking at the stained glass windows. There weren't many people taking refuge here, but for those who wished to, candles tried their best to warm the halls and pews and people occupying them. The two figures in the very back pew on the right had never actually set foot in the church before in their lives, but it was important to be there, although only one of them knew that. It was that half of that particular equation that had been near here before, in this part of the country, Devonshire to be exact, and even atop the windy hill near the church.

Lana Hendricks hadn't set foot in Devonshire in almost eight months. And now she was sitting in a church, another rare occasion for her. But so much had happened since the eight months that she'd been back in her home of London, England. She herself had not changed so much, but her world, the life she dwelt in, insisted upon throwing itself into tumult, uncertainty and grief. Lana was not a religious person, never had been, but felt something lacking in her life. Not every church held the guidance she was looking for, and none of them had actual answers, but every now and then, one church stood out among the others. This little chapel in Devonshire was one of them. Something in the air felt reassuring and truly blessed and she couldn't help but smile as she looked round. Perhaps the reason for this church's comfort was the person who lay in the burial ground just up the hill.

Standing on that hill, separated from most of the other graves, but still right next to one bearing the same surname was the final resting place of someone who had come into Lana's life for only a short time but who had also left an indelible mark on it. Lana stuffed her hands in her pockets, the dark green jacket serving her well on the cold January day, as did the navy blue skinny jeans and black leather boots. She only wished her hair was longer at this moment, the wind biting through to her ears, through the uneven spikes of black hair, some hitting her chin, others just barely clearing the nape of her neck. She stared at the tombstone, longing for something she couldn't quite name. That day flashed before her mind in crystal clear images.

Lana had been dragged bodily from the converted army basement in which the Daleks had chosen to establish their stronghold. Captain Jack Harkness, a man apparently gifted with immortality had instructed the twins on how to set up the explosives. He'd then grabbed her arm without a word and forced her to a room down the hallway. She'd gone kicking and screaming the whole way, but in the end proved no match for the brute strength of the American captain. The door shut tight in front of her, she banged on it with all her strength, knowing it wouldn't do any good. She kept up her cacophony until she heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of the others. She added her noise to that of the destruction, hating that she was being left out, knowing that she could be of help. She'd gotten them here, hadn't she? She'd called the Doctor's attention by projecting her image into his ship and led him to where they were now.

So she'd been utterly ashamed when the door had opened revealing the twins being carried, unconscious and ashen faced by the Doctor and Jack. She had fallen in step behind them, noticing, and quashing sudden and uncharacteristic squeamishness at the sight of a temple dripping blood. She couldn't recall now whose it had been; Lucy's or Juliet's. Later, picking their way through the streets of London back to the TARDIS, Lana had looked round at all the people coming out of hiding. She felt sudden pangs of guilt as she thought of the family she'd left in a bomb shelter. She took shaky breaths and felt the feeling drain from her fingertips and toes.

Back inside the impossible ship which was bigger on the inside, the twins had been laid on the floor and the Doctor had opened a pocket watch over them. She had no idea what he was doing, couldn't begin to guess and couldn't pretend to understand, but she knew that his methods worked. She'd called him because he was the one who made the aliens go away. That was what she'd learned from Torchwood, anyway. Many things had happened recently, especially in London and the Doctor seemed to be the one who prevented it all from getting worse. Lana had gasped in amazement at the gold dust that hovered over the half dead twins and was inhaled by Lucy but not by Juliet. Jack's hand had tightened around her shoulder and she heard him stifle a cry.

Lucy had awoken and discovered that she'd been made into a Timelord, then looked over to discover her still unconscious twin sister. She'd railed and cried and screamed and Lana hadn't blamed her one bit. The Doctor had however, bade her and Jack to go somewhere else while he tried to console her. They'd gone without argument and waited in Lucy's room. He'd filled her in on what he knew of the mechanics of the process.

"You still haven't told me exactly who she is, Lana." Lana was promptly torn from her memories and forced to answer the person she'd brought with her, one of only two people left on this planet who really understood her; her own sister Victoria. Lana stared into her sister's liquid light green eyes with her own dark brown ones. Yes, Victoria was truly the beauty in the family. Their father had taken to calling them Yin and Yang, Lana dark in all respects from her eyes, her hair and her olive skin and Victoria with her pale green eyes, pink skin and pale blonde hair.

"Juliet Blake, she's…well. Do you remember about eight months ago, when the Daleks came back again and I locked you guys in a bomb shelter?" Victoria nodded a worried pucker coming between her brows.

"Well, this girl and her twin sister, they helped make them go away again."

"Lana, I'm not exactly a child, you never told me what happened, you never talk about it, but I want to know what happened. Where did you go that day? Were, were those the people you brought back to the shelter when you let us out?"

"Yes they were. The Doctor was the tall one in the trench coat, the other bloke is called Jack and the woman you saw was Lucy Blake, this woman's twin. You see, the Doctor is the one who's been clearing away all the aliens from Earth in the last, I dunno, hundreds of years. He sucked up all the Daleks and turned them into dust. And Lucy and Juliet, they blew up the, the transport thing they came in. Jack locked me in a room so I wouldn't get hurt, and for good reason I now understand. Lucy and Juliet got blasted and Juliet died. Lucy would have too, if the Doctor hadn't made her like him. You see, he's not human, even though he looks it. He's a Timelord and he made Lucy Blake one too. But they couldn't save Juliet, and this is her grave and I just felt like I needed to go back here and knew I couldn't do it alone."

Victoria nodded and Lana knew without asking that her sister believed her. That was one nice thing about being so young; it made one that much more able to accept things presented to them. Not that Victoria was terribly naïve, and she'd just celebrated her fourteenth birthday a few days ago. But she trusted her sister and accepted her seeming ramblings for truth.

"Who's Emmeline Blake then?" Victoria asked.

"Dunno, probably their mum."

Victoria nodded again, staring at Emmeline's headstone. "Guess we all have something in common then."

Lana looked up suddenly, surprised at the suddenly bitter tone her sister's voice had taken. Victoria never talked about their mother's recent death. She had been devastated, of course, they all had, but after the funeral, Victoria had kind of shut her mind away about the whole thing. It had happened about two months after the Daleks and Juliet's death; less than six months ago. The girls' mother, Hadley had had an aortic aneurysm one her way home from work one day and she'd been buried a few days later, her family still in shock. Their father Anthony had taken it hardest of all; retreating from the world, into his home, into his rooms, into his mind. Lana and Victoria loved their father. And he loved his girls. But theirs was a world of silence now, broken only by pleasantries and half remembered thoughts of social niceties.

"Yeah, I guess we do." Lana was still staring wide eyed at her younger sister, who sometimes felt so much older than Lana herself, who had celebrated (more acknowledged really) her eighteenth birthday in November. Having graduated from Sylvia Prince Preparatory School that fateful June, Lana had been only mystified when she was accepted at Oxford University. Her grades had always been brilliant and she'd gotten several scholarships, but she'd turned it all down for an offer she felt she couldn't refuse.

Lana Hendricks was working for the Torchwood company. Jack Harkness had approached her personally very shortly after her mother died in August. He hadn't wanted to tear her away from Oxford, had even apologized when he learned she'd been accepted and stood to leave, but she didn't let him. She accepted his offer, saying that Oxford had nothing to offer her. She had explained to him that she'd found her purpose that day two months ago when she was tracking down a hostile alien race and aiding in its dispatch. He'd given her that spine tingling grin and shook her hand while she laughed. She was working her way onto Jack's personal team, and he was constantly vouching for her. He dropped by her little desk every day, sometimes more than once and usually set a coffee down on it, just the way she liked.

Usually, she walked home from Torchwood, but every now and then he'd give her a ride home. It was on these days that she was almost grateful for her father's distant silence and detachment. He hadn't asked why she'd given up going to Oxford. He hadn't asked about her peculiar and mysterious job choice. And he hadn't asked about the handsome but older man who dropped her off sometimes.

Not that there was anything there, of course. Jack, Lana knew, had cared for Juliet a great deal; he may even have loved her. Something had broken in Jack Harkness, some small piece of him had been buried along with Juliet. And Lana was not the dating sort. She had long ago given up attachments to other people, and this resolve had only strengthened in the last few months. The only person she opened up to anymore was Victoria, and even then, only a little, because she didn't want to shoulder her little sister with her problems.

She did like Jack though, in spite of his over zealous flirting. He was carefree and she envied that about him. She liked that he didn't wear his problems on his sleeves, she liked that he found the courage to be optimistic and she especially liked that he was the only person she knew on the planet who treated her the same as before the Daleks, before everything that had happened.

"What are you gonna tell dad when we get home?"

Lana was once again jerked from her thoughts by her sister. She didn't recall leaving the graveyard, walking down the narrow road or hopping back on the bus to London. She was sitting now in an uncomfortable and stiff blue seat, head resting against the cool window, the glass vibrating beneath her temple, shaking her teeth a bit. Victoria was poised in the aisle seat, staring at her sister, imploring an answer.

"Oh, er, I figured I'd just say we went out for chips or something, maybe saw a flick? Anyway, he won't ask." They both knew this to be true, so Victoria left her elder sister to her brooding. But Lana didn't want to think anymore. The visit to Juliet's grave had done her good, she believed that, but something still wasn't right; something hadn't been right for months.

The two girls walked up to the small manor however, like they were the most ordinary girls in the world. Lana wondered, and not for the first time, just how similar she was to Lucy Blake, the human turned Timelord. She didn't know much about her life at all, but Jack had been able to fill in a little of what confabulation and her own experience with her couldn't. She knew that Lucy's mother had died, though not how. She knew that her own dad was long gone from the picture of her life, but no reason for that either. She knew that her sister was dead. And she knew that before this most heart wrenching of deaths, Lucy and Juliet had been closer than close. They had been all the other had in the world. Lana looked behind herself as she opened the door and thought of these similarities, at the light of her own life, her very own closer than close sister. Maybe not so much in words, but certainly in heart, they were one.

Victoria smiled as they stepped inside to the foyer and went to their separate rooms. Lana echoed her smile, but did not feel it. She refused to be a victim of her circumstances. So her mother had died? Lots of people had dead mothers and perfectly normal lives. So her father barely spoke a word anymore? At least he was still around. So she hadn't gone to a prestigious school in pursuit of a dream? That was her own choice; she knew she'd be no happier studying art at Oxford than she would be hunting and catching aliens here. But something was missing, something she couldn't name. So wouldn't it serve that she couldn't properly mourn this thing if she couldn't even rightly identify it? One would think.

Lana awoke the next morning after a night of restless sleep. She tossed and turned and started up at the ceiling, air coming out of her lungs and escaping her lips in great heaving sighs. She groaned as she rolled over and clumsily hit the floor, her bare feet cold on the mahogany wood. Hadn't there been a rug there before? Ah, yes, she'd brought the rug with her to Torchwood one day upon Jack's request and it had been sacrificed in the name of catching a Shade. A Shade had turned out to be a gremlin like creature from some distant planet that had somehow gotten into headquarters and run amok. Lana's rug had served in its capture and she never had gotten it back. She'd have to ask Jack where it had ended up.

For now, she had to get ready for work. She crossed the hall to the bathroom and showered quickly, the hot water hitting her between her shoulder blades, water invading her mouth, eyes and nose. When she finished, it was back across the hall with her in her dripping hair and towel. She pulled yet another pair of navy blue jeans out of a dresser and a navy blue almost completely angora sweater to go with it. On went her customary and obligatory black leather boots and she was ready to go. She never wore make up and the beauty of having short, spiky and pin straight hair was that one never had to do anything to it.

The streets of London were packed as always, which suited Lana just fine. Cities were a thrill; she would never thrive in any countryside. She ducked and dodged the street peddlers, the vagabonds, the businessmen, the tourists, the wayward children, and whatever else London could toss her way. At long last she entered the polished glass doors of Torchwood and headed to her fifth floor desk.

Upon arriving at said desk, Lana Hendricks found a welcome sight. Jack Harkness was sitting on a corner of the desk, steaming mug of coffee in his hand and cheesy grin plastered to his face.

"And how is my favourite employee today?"

Lana flashed him a cheeky grin of her own and accepted her prize; coffee. "If being your favourite means the best coffee in London every morning, I can't complain, Jack." He smiled at her and then ducked his head, trying to read her from under his eyelashes.

"Something's up, oh favourite employee. Spill."

"No, it's nothing, really. I er…Jack, I went to visit Juliet yesterday."

Jack blanched visibly and the smiled dropped from his gorgeous face. The unspoken question in his eyes implored her; _Why? _

Lana sighed heavily, sill not entirely sure why herself. "It just seemed, I dunno, right. I needed to get out, Jack and Devonshire was sort of calling to me. Jack, I don't know if this is it, but I feel like, like maybe Lucy and the Doctor were trying to reach out to me and that was…" Not the only way they knew how, that was impossible. And besides, Lana had a secret that she hadn't told Jack, or even Victoria. But Jack was nodding, at least understanding her feelings, or rather, her inability to express them.

"Well, uh, I, uh, I have a lot to do, so, um…"

"Get back to work, Captain. Can't have you slacking off." Lana grinned at him again and he smiled his thanks at her as he walked away; he wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Lana wanted the same thing, but piles and piles of paperwork stared her in the face, taunting her with their tedious busywork. Lana had never in her life imagined that she would have a desk job. Once she had had dreams of sitting on ancient stone steps of even more ancient cities all over the world and drawing the people that passed her. Now she still wanted to go all those places, but she longed for something else. Perhaps the chance to see the stars and travel time. She had finally voiced the thought that had been preying on her brain cells. And she knew just what to do about it. As soon as all this rubbish paperwork was done, of course.

As she was leaving, Lana had her hands once again stuffed in the pockets of her favourite jacket. This time they did not come away empty-handed. She never really acknowledged that this mobile was there. She'd felt its weight in her pocket, memorized the feel of it, but did not let herself dial the only number programmed into it. This was the mobile that Lucy Blake had slipped to her as she departed with the Doctor. This was Juliet's phone.

Lana looked up at the people around her, most headed home from work, some just beginning their nights. These were for all intents and purposes completely normal people and Lana found them the strangest things she had ever come across. She looked down again at the phone resting in her right hand and debated with herself. As if acting of their own accord, Lana's feet began to move, one in front of the other, walking to some unknown destination. She found herself walking streets she didn't know, but she wasn't afraid and she wouldn't turn back. She stopped after about twenty minutes of uninterrupted walking and looked around. She had stopped in front of a row of apartments, the flats all looking the same. She was on the end of one row and she peered into the ground floor of this last flat. The window had no shade on it but there were no lights on either. No one lived here; the room was completely empty. Lana stared at the number and then looked at the street sign positioned near an alleyway nearby. Lana Hendricks had made her was to 10838 Carnaby Street, although, she of course, didn't know the significance of that. She did know however, that it was time to dial that one number in the mobile. She was going to call the Doctor and Lucy Blake.

As soon as it started ringing however, Lana felt that she might be making a mistake. She didn't really need anything. Nothing was wrong. Perhaps they were busy. But before Lana could hang up, a not soon to be forgotten voice picked up on the other end.

"Lana Hendricks, is that you?"

"Yes, yes it is, Lucy Blake."


	2. Back

Life after the Doctor was never easy. Captain Jack Harkness knew this better than almost anyone on the planet. He tried to make it easier by interspersing his journeys with the Timelord with periods of good old fashioned, non TARDIS related alien hunting. He would stick around for a while, sometimes just as long as was convenient and then hop back to Earth, to his beloved crew at Torchwood. Although, these interrupted jaunts did not make his life easier like he planned. Things got in the way. No time ever seemed like the right time to leave. Something always needed to be done. And once he finally was gone again, something ached deep inside, where any normal person didn't know he could ache.

Perhaps his melancholy was enhanced by the fact that he could not die. No matter what, he was not subject to the normal laws of the universe. People left the Earth forever, while he was condemned to stay.

That was what had been hardest about this last time. He had been blasted just the same as the twins in efforts to rid the world of Daleks once and for all, and yet Juliet had still died. And Lucy would have too, had the Doctor not been in possession of a reverse Chameleon Arch. Jack had let himself harbour true affection for Lucy's twin sister. And now she would never know how he felt and he would never know what his life could have been like.

Anguish coiled around the captain like a cocoon as he sat up in bed, thinking about the last few months and how life had turned out. It was one of his recent developments that was slowly chiseling away this crippling hurt. Lana Hendricks had made all the difference.

He'd asked her to work for Torchwood, knew that her skills would be much better employed working for them than in spite of the organization. She was a talented hacker, a gifted analyst and because of recent events had become quite adept at handling alien life forms. It was really the least he could do to bring her a coffee on most mornings as she made her way to her desk.

He should have known that his new found redemption, this budding optimism of his in the form of his enthusiasm for the teenager would be a double edged sword. Because of course, Lana Hendricks was now his only tie to any memories of Juliet. And he should have been prepared that morning when he was sitting on the corner of her desk and slowly told him that she'd gone to visit the dead woman's grave. She hadn't been able to explain her reasoning, and Jack thought that perhaps that made the most sense of all, stupidly blindsided as he was by her news.

Some kind of unfinished business nagged at him though, something he could see evident in the way Lana held her face, in the way she drew into herself and how her eyes looked all around and yet at nothing in particular. So while he talked with Gwen, his thoughts were with whatever Lana was plotting. While he tried to make decisions and answer questions, his mind was trying to remain two steps ahead.

With just a couple clicks of his computer, he was able to set everything up. One control sent a signal with instructions to an employee over to her desk, distracting her with talk. Another click sent another signal to another employee hurtling by, carrying a toppling stack of papers. When this individual dropped the papers as planned, Lana and the first employee volunteered to gather up the upset items while this second person put a nearly microscopic tracking device on the collar of her jacket. Both left in a timely but not obvious fashion and with one final click of his mouse, the GPS dot was transmitting Lana Hendricks' location to the captain to within a two foot diameter. No matter where she went he would know.

He didn't like the idea of deceiving her, or of following her, but she had given him just cause. She had gone all the way from London to Devonshire, with only her fourteen year old sister as company. So when Lana left at the end of the day and did not head for the manor, but instead in a direction that he wasn't even sure if she was aware of, his guilt abated.

He quickly jumped up from his desk, grabbed his coat, but didn't put it on and debated dashing out the door so that he could tail her. He then shoved back the sleeve of his silk button down wine coloured shirt and glanced at the short range teleport. He'd gotten hold of another one almost as soon as returning to Torchwood after dispatching the Daleks. They were in relatively short supply though, since the Doctor kept disabling them. Jack looked again at the monitor with the moving, blinking red dot that was Lana Hendricks. He'd wait for now, see where she ended up and then be there by her side in no time flat.

He stood agitatedly before the screen, wondering at the paths her feet trod. Jack was well aware of how well versed Lana was with the city of London; it was she who had guided them underground and aboveground some months ago. But he was almost certain that she would have no cause to memorize where she was currently heading. It wasn't that she was in a particularly dodgy location, but why on Earth would she ever have business in London's fashion district?

Jack realized where Lana was going too late for his taste. For it wasn't until she stopped and remained standing that he recognized the address. He hit a few more buttons and zoomed in on her. There she was, a tiny pinprick standing in front of what Jack barely remembered as Lucy and Juliet Blake's prior home. "Oh, Lana, what are you doing? What good can this do?" He fumbled with the teleport on his wrist and set the coordinates. In less than a blink of the eye, he was gone.

Lana was startled by the sound of stumbling feet behind her. She'd been extra careful to be sure that no one had followed her and yet here someone was; mere feet behind her. She whirled round, her right boot coming to meet her deft left hand which drew out a small blade. She flicked it open and trained it at the chest of Captain Jack Harkness. Her eyes widened, but her brow remained furrowed and her mouth opened in surprise. How had he gotten here so fast?

"Fat lot of good that will do, Lana, I'll just wake up after you stab me. Although, I'd prefer we skip that altogether. Dying still hurts, you know."

Lana looked down at the poised blade and flicked it shut, returning it to its home in her shoe. "Sorry, Jack, you gave me a real fright though. How'd you get here so quick? I didn't think anyone was following me."

"Well I was, though not in the normal way." He put his hands back up and glanced down at her feet, still angled in fighting position and at the boot containing the knife. "Now please don't hurt me, but I had someone put a tracking dot on you. I don't like the idea of you wandering around like this on your own and I wanted to be able to, I dunno, intervene if I had to."

Lana narrowed her eyes again and her hands twitched, as though fighting the urge to reach for a weapon. She saw Jack barely suppress a flinch and felt a small twinge of satisfaction as he glanced once again at her weapon containing boot. She didn't move to draw it though and instead said, "You bloody prick! I can take care of myself in case you hadn't noticed."

"I know that, Lana, but-"

"No! No buts! I think I've proven time and again that I don't need looking after. I take care of myself, I've got Victoria's back, and if I rightly recall, it was me what led everyone round to get rid of the Daleks. I'm not a child, Jack!" She then went about searching her person for the miniscule tracking dot. Jack sighed and lowered his hands, gingerly stepped forward and reached around her back to remove the GPS dot from the collar of her coat. She stiffened with indignation when he got close to her and she glared up at him as he removed it, threw it on the ground and stepped on it. Only when he stepped back again, four feet away from her did she unclench her jaw. Jack knew that she handled herself better than most eighteen year olds, but she still had some growing up to do. She was too angry, too eager to prove herself and far too rash. He felt guilty once again for deceiving her, but not exactly sorry or wrong for doing it.

Sighing, he said, "What are you doing here anyway, Lana? Do you know where we are?"

Lana shook her head replying, "Not exactly. I mean, we're in the fashion district, but when I left…I just started walking. My feet knew where I was going but the rest of me didn't. I don't think I've been here before but something told me to come. And, when Lucy dropped me off back home…she gave me Juliet's mobile." Lana's expression and tone softened at seeing the slight caving of Jack's chest, the barely noticeable droop of his shoulders. "There's only Lucy's number in it now and she told me to call her if ever I needed to. And I guess I didn't really need to, but, but I did. They're on their way now."

"You told them exactly where we are?" Jack asked, his eyes going slightly wider."

"Yeah, I gave her the address and then her voice got all funny and quiet and she just said they'd be there as soon as they could."

"Lana, this is Lucy's…and Juliet's old flat. I can't believe you came here without knowing what it was." Jack stared as Lana looked to her left, peering once again into the dark, empty apartment.

"I didn't know." she said so softly that Jack was sure she hadn't meant for him to hear. Her introspection was cut short by the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS landing. She turned round and backed up to stand next to Jack. She let him put his hand on her shoulder and waited with bated breath for the doors to open.

When they did, Jack was all cheesy grin and Lana allowed herself a crooked smirk. The Doctor came out first, hands stuffed in the pocket of his trench coat, looking dashing in a crisp blue pinstriped suit and navy Converse trainers. Lucy came out next, positively beaming as she rushed to embrace Lana. The young girl breathed in the spicy yet sweet aroma of Lucy's perfume and couldn't help but stare as she stepped back. Being a Timelord suited Lucy well. Not that she looked any different. Still the same knowing gaze of her dark blue eyes, the same messy sweep of her coal black hair, the same stern yet graceful stance and even the slight turnout of her feet when standing still. She was dressed in a graphic tee with nautical items printed on the front, black skinny jeans and a long crocheted dark grey wrap and black ballet flats. Lucy winked at the captain and looked briefly at the Doctor before taking his hand. While she spoke, he looked at the creature standing beside him with glowing affection.

"So, Lana, you said no emergencies, but what can we do for you two?"

"I can't explain it, Lucy; it just felt right to call you. I'm actually really sorry; I think I'm off my nut. I didn't even realize where we were until Jack told me."

The Doctor and Lucy both glanced over at the flat. Lana saw the Doctor squeeze her hand as Lucy bit her lip. When she looked back at the two Torchwood members however, she was recovered and all smiles.

"Quite all right. Now get inside you two, it's freezing out."

Back inside the TARDIS, Lucy assumed her regular position of leaning against some railing, the Doctor standing by the controls as though guarding them. Jack moved to stand opposite Lucy and Lana realized that she had no official position in the ship. She'd been inside it only enough times to count on one hand and so she shuffled awkwardly to a seat and leaned forward, crossing her legs and letting them dangle above the floor.

'So, Lana my girl, how has life been treating you?" The Doctor smiled at her as he asked his well meaning question. She wished she was invisible as Jack turned his knowledgeable gaze upon her and Lucy looked up at her expectantly. Nothing left to do but fess up though, since she mentally wished that she could melt through the chair and into the workings of the ship.

"Actually, I suppose I can't complain but for a while things got a bit, I dunno. Bleak. Er, I got into Oxford, but I turned it down and I'm working for Torchwood now, by personal invitation of Captain Jack. He figured I'd handle myself round aliens well enough. But er, mum died a few months ago, and my dad, he just sort of sits round you know? Doesn't do or say much. So it's kinda just me and my sister, Victoria." Lana wished she hadn't added that last part as soon as she'd said it. She glanced quickly over at Lucy and saw the initial tightening of her shoulders, the ever so slight intake of breath. Lana's gaze was apologetic and as Lucy stared into her eyes, a sad smile broke across her visage, echoed in Lana's own bittersweet smirk. The moment passed and Lana knew that she was in the same boat that Lucy had been and that she would hold onto it as tightly as she could. She also knew that Lucy didn't begrudge her one bit.

"I'm sorry about your family, Lana." The Doctor said, breaking the silence.

"No, really it's all right .Everything's sort of worked out in its own way and it could be way worse." Lucy smiled again and the Doctor gave a sage nod.

"Say, Lana." He said, tilting his head to her, "You never got a proper trip in the TARDIS. What say we fix that little dilemma right now, eh?"

Lana grinned, looking for the first time to Captain Jack like a normal eighteen year old girl and watched as the Doctor flipped a couple switches while Lucy pulled at others, the two flying the amazing contraption like they'd been doing it together all their lives.

"But Doctor, where are we going?" she asked.

"Just back in time a little. Something you said made me want to try something. Work out a little suspicion I've had for quite some time now."

"I still don't understand." Lana confessed, customary half scowl etched across her features, her gravelly voice emphasizing her point.

"It's time, Lana." said the Doctor. "Time to go down the rabbit hole."


End file.
